Akbar Ganji has come to represent the democratic movement in Iran, not simply because of his enormous courage or the originality of his views, but because he has revealed the “true face of the system in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Alhough he has been in prison since the year 2000 and has been gravely weakened by illness and a two-month-long hunger strike in the summer of 2005, he still stands out as the strongest figure in today’s Iran.